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By Jamie Favell, Wednesday 24th August 2005 10.10pm (1882 views)
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V Festival @ Weston Park, Stafford
Date: 19th August 2005
Support: various
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Glasswerk and the brunette returned from FIB in a state of disrepair, we’ve been locked away in a dark room for the past ten days hooked up to an intravenous drip of vodka and fanta limon. We’ve now been discharged and so it is we’re off to V in Stafford, with a prescription for warm beer and junk food.
Whilst in Spain we were dodging gypsies with feral dogs that were peddling their wares of mind altering substances. This weekend we’re prepared for a much tougher assignment, ensuring we’re out of earshot of any MOR, believe me it’s a tough one with a line-up that boasts, among others, Rooster, Maroon 5, Natasha Bedingfield, and Texas. We’re also planning to stay relatively sober and keep memory loss to a minimum.
The day kicks of with Idlewild, Roddy’s as charismatic as ever and the cameras mostly focus on the bassplayer, then it's over to see The Frames, I am Kloot and the Ordinary Boys. The Ordinary Army have turned up and Preston and the boys play a competent set including a cover of The Ramones ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’, ‘Over the Counter Culture’, ‘Week In Week Out’ and finishing with ‘Seaside’. Alison Goldfrapp pleases the crown in the JJB Arena with her unique blend of scuzzy electro, masochistic lyrics and most importantly two scantily clad wolverine masked beauties. Whilst over on the mainstage Embrace are getting emotional on us, Danny MacNamara thanks Chris Martin for saving them from the 9 to 5 jobs they almost had (yeah thanks a lot Chris) though they do knock out a crowd pleasing rendition of ‘Save Me’ and finish with ‘The Good Will Out’ to rapturous applause from the crowd.
Franz Ferdinand start late and finish early on the main stage, but play a blistering set inbetween, Franz classics ‘Matinee’, ‘Michael’ and ‘Take Me Out’ send the crown into an angular art rock frenzy and four new songs including ‘I’m Your Villain’ and ‘Do You Want To?’ from forthcoming second album ’You Could Have It So Much Better…With Franz Ferdinand’ slot comfortably into their set and are classic Franz. In their usual impeccable style the band introduce themselves to the crowd as they close the set with Darts of Pleasure.
Next we catch the end of the Roots and their own special blend of Hip Hop and Hendrix guitar riffs get the party started in the tent. For Saturdays finale, where better to see the legend that is Ian Brown then in the north? Everybody knows that his setlists have been saturated with Stone Roses classics and this ensures a massive crown turn out to see him in the big top. He takes to the stage to football worshipping chants of his name and launches into set dominated, early on, by his solo hits, Golden Gaze takes on a whole new lease of life as big fat dirty beats threaten to blow the tent out of the ground, the genius of F.E.A.R is met by rapturous applause and the crowd sing along to everyword. We get the impression he’s teasing us though and start to doubt we’re going to hear any Roses until close to the end of his set he launches into She Bangs Drums and then finishes with a Sex Pistols cover. There’s no way he’s getting out of here tonight without an encore and when he comes back on stage he does it in crowd pleasing style with ‘Made of Stone’ and ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ barely having to sing a note of the latter as the crowd chant the song word for word. It’s emotional.
Sunday and the weather is glorious so we rock up to the Channel 4 Stage with a cold beer for an early start….The Young Knives delight a small crowd with their hybrid of The Good Life, angular punk and tank tops, recent release Hot Summer goes down a treat in the burning midday sun. It’s far to hot and sunny for The Departure they’re more suited to darkness but they still put on a great show, they dedicate a song to the Subways and their crisp guitars cut through the haze of maryjane being smoked lazily on the grass. If any band could guarantee glorious sunshine and good vibes you’d have your money on The Magic Numbers, greeted by the biggest crowd of the day so far they’re gobsmacked, frontman Romeo says ‘When I woke up this morning I had no idea we would get this reaction’ This is one of those moments that almost brings Glasswerk to tears the bands beautiful melodies and harmonies of songs like ‘I See You, You See Me’ float around Weston Park bringing joy to anyone within earshot. If only they could play all day, it would be a total festival love-in, like Woodstock happening all over again. The Numbers are surely one of the few bands here this weekend with the courage to finish their set with a brand new song; The Beard (christened at a gig in Manchester just recently) is a stompin' and a hollerin’ knees up of country and hillbilly blues and a perfect set closer.
Over to the main stage for our first taste of the Noel Gallagher approved bands playing there today and Jet do what they’re best at and play an amazing set of their derogatory rock n roll, new songs ‘Snap your Fingers’ and ‘Stand Up’ prove there’s a lot more to come from them. The Zutons set is a bit flat and you get the feeling Dave McCabe senses this as he entices the crowd into making some noises of appreciation, a new songs dedicated to Abi’s family and everyone on the Booster (funfair ride) is full of energy and possibly titled ‘Last Night Of My Life’, they finish they’re set on a high with ‘You Will, You Wont’. The Bravery play to a massive crowd over on the 4 Stage (building up for the Kaisers?) and finish their set with the excellent ‘Fearless’ something wicked this way comes for sure, its Dirt’s make up artist.
The Kaiser Chiefs take the stage and you can’t squeeze any more people into the field it’s packed to bursting, Ricky hobbles onto the stage, discards his crutches and hobbles over to the microphone before launching into a set where it’s business as usual as he pogos around the stage using his plastered foot as a balance. A rebel rousing version of ‘I Predict A Riot’ sees the crowd kick off and go absolutely wild. One young lady overcome with excitement climbs the ladder that leads to the lampy’s desk and treats the crowd to some further entertainment giving those below a much better view of her assets then she realised, she’s eventually escorted down by the burly security but even manages to turn this into a pole dance almost upstaging the Kaisers. The bands singles ‘Oh My God’ and ‘Every Day I Love You Less and Less’ got a massive response from the crowd and they also play ‘Sink That Ship’ which is on the ‘I Predict A Riot’ re-release.
Doves are introduced by the legend that is Peter Kay, he asks the crowd at the front ‘how are ya? are ya smelling of piss?’ and informs us that ‘it give me great pleasure to…….sit on bath taps’ as we’re anticipating an intro for the band! When doves were touring a couple of years ago with Lost Souls and Last Broadcast behind them it seemed they were destined to become the greatest live band the world had ever seen. When they returned a couple of years later Some Cities seemed, at first, to dissolve an amazing set list. This is the second time we’ve seen Doves at a festival in the last ten days and it’s virtually the same set (albeit there’s a great moment when the band play the Knight Rider theme) they kick of with ‘Pounding’ and finish with the always uplifting ‘There Goes The Fear’ tracks like ‘Almost Forgot Myself’ and ‘Sky Starts Falling’ are now so obviously classic doves and sit in the set perfectly, proving that one day Doves will get the headline slot that they deserve so much.
Oasis are up next, we saw them last week, they’re back on form and though it’s tempting the three hour drive back to London seems a like a lot of hard work so we cut the chase to the car to echo’s of ‘Lyla’ and Liam slagging off Pete Doherty.
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